


Out of Sight, Out of Mind

by sorryinadvance



Series: We're More Than A Band [6]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Canon Universe, Crazy, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Ghosts, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Carlos Mention, Minor Flynn Mention, POV First Person, Poor Ray, Post-Canon, Puppy Reggie, Ray Struggles, Ray's POV, Reggie Needs a Hug (Julie and The Phantoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorryinadvance/pseuds/sorryinadvance
Summary: 3 times Ray thinks he sees the guys & the 1 time he does.
Series: We're More Than A Band [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931422
Comments: 44
Kudos: 690





	Out of Sight, Out of Mind

I.

Ray had a relatively easy shoot with one of his long-term clients and actually get home before the kids returned home from school. His client had wanted him to capture her summer beach house down in Malibu in a very “moviesque fashion” (her words, not his). He enjoyed the warm breeze rolling in from the ocean and tousling his hair. The salty scent from the water that seeped into his clothes.

Being back on the beach was a big reminder for Ray. It brought back memories of days spent with his family out on the pier, trying to teach Julie how to fish. He chuckled quietly as he remembered the girl shying away from touching a floundering fish and stomping her feet to say how she didn’t want to hurt the poor fish because it reminded her too much of Finding Nemo. Then, the warm summer nights when Rose insisted he build a small bonfire while she sat on a beach towel with the kids, softly strumming her guitar and an ever-present smile dancing on her lips.

He was so lost in the memory of Rose’s laugh and his kids chasing each other around in the sand that Ray almost failed to notice the wide-open fridge as he strode through the kitchen. Almost.

He stopped short when he felt the cold air hit the back of his neck, successfully pulling him from the memories of his family and allowing him to refocus on his surroundings.

Ray blinked once, twice, three times. He had hoped the blinking would fix the strange picture in front of him, and, of course, it didn’t. Why was the fridge open? Did they forget to close it before they left the house? No. That’s impossible. The kitchen would be significantly colder if that was the case. Did Victoria drop something off for dinner and left in too much of a hurry to close the fridge door right? A quick glance in the fridge confirmed that was not the case either.

He stood in front of the fridge for a moment, still staring at the contents inside, before slowly shutting the door. Ray waited and watched. The fridge door stayed shut.

“Well, that’s weird,” he muttered to himself.

The sound of the front door slamming shut snapped him out of his confusion.

“Dad? You home?” Julie’s voice echoed from the living room.

He turned to the kitchen doorway just as Julie walked in the room. From the corner of his eye, Ray swore he saw a glimpse of a teenage boy with brown hair and a black t-shirt standing right in front of the fridge. But, when he snapped his head to check, whatever he saw was gone.

“Dad? You okay?” Julie asked hesitantly.

When he turned to focus on his daughter, he quickly nodded.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Sorry, I was out in the sun all day. I think my mind is playing tricks on me,” he chuckled, “How was school today, _mija_?”

Ray listened as his daughter told him about a new subject she learned about in biology that day and laughed when Julie talked about Flynn impressing their music class with a rap she came up with on the fly. He was so engrossed in the conversation with his oldest child that he forgot all about coming home to an empty house and a wide-open fridge door.

II.

Normally, when it was time for dinner, Ray would send Carlos to call Julie from the studio, but the boy was in serious trouble tonight. He had gotten a call from his son’s school this afternoon about Carlos failing an important math test last week. A test that Carlos had sworn up and down didn’t exist last week in favor of Ray letting him stay up an extra hour to play a new video game his aunt had bought for his birthday. As punishment, the boy was going to be doing all of his studying and homework downstairs in the kitchen while Ray worked on (heated up) dinner and finished his photo editing.

Ray was walking down the steps leading to the garage when he heard his daughter’s laughter. Not even a moment later, a boy’s laugh followed.

Frowning, Ray tiptoed to the large wooden doors and peeked through the windows. He saw Julie sitting cross legged on the floor, leaning over the coffee table with a bottle of nail polish next to her. On the other side of the table, a blonde teenage boy in a pink hoodie sat facing her.

What the—?

He quickly moved to swing the garage doors open to see…Julie. Sitting on the floor. Alone.

“Where did he go?”

Julie held her phone in one hand, staring quizzically at her father.

“Who?” she looked around as if to prove that she was the only one in the studio.

“I saw—I saw a blonde kid sitting with you. I heard him laugh—Julie, where did he go?” Ray asked, spinning in a circle to look for a blonde head or pink hoodie sticking out anywhere.

“Um, I was on the phone with Nick? We just hung up,” she slowly explained. Julie watched as he climbed up the ladder to check the loft.

Ray felt one of his eyes twitch. “I know I saw a blonde kid sitting with you!”

Julie stood from the ground and walked over to him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and said, “Maybe you should go see Dr. Turner, Dad.”

Ray’s eye twitched again as he took a calming breath.

“I—Okay. Just drop it, alright? Come on, dinner’s ready,” Ray snapped. He followed Julie out of the studio, still glancing around.

He _knows_ he saw something.

III.

_“Take off, last stop, countdown ‘til we blast open the top…”_

Ray drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, nodding his head along to the song. Carlos had found some old CDs in the studio one day and brought a box full of them into the house, insisting they listen to all of them together. The box of CDs had belonged to Rose once upon a time, and Ray remembered when he had stuffed the box in the old loft a few days after she passed.

He had been rummaging around under their bed for his dress shoes so he could clean them for the funeral. Instead, he pulled out the old shoe box of CDs Rose had collected over the years. He didn’t have the heart to listen to them or tell the kids. It was an impulsive decision to put them in loft, and he intended to get them out again once the emotional wounds had healed. Sad to say, he forgot about the box.

Ray and his kids had dedicated a lazy Sunday morning to listen to the old CDs after Carlos brought them back in. The music ranged from reggae to old Tejano to rock and even country. Rose always did have a varying taste in music. Ray smiled as he remembered how if anyone wanted to know what mood the woman was in, all they had to do was pay attention to the music she was listening to. There was never a moment when the kids were growing up that music wasn’t playing, whether it be from the stereo, his dad’s old record player, or from Rose herself.

This CD in particular had an amazing guitar and catchy lyrics that had engrained themselves into his brain.

_“Keep dreaming like we’ll live forever; we’re living like it’s now or never…”_

Ray pulled into the school parking lot and idled by the curb, waiting for Julie. His oldest child had dance rehearsal that ran a little later than usual, and Ray didn’t like the idea of Julie walking home in the dark.

He didn’t have to wait long. Julie came striding down the steps with Flynn at her side. He watched as the two girls said their goodbyes and parted ways. Flynn waved at Ray before walking towards her mother’s minivan.

Julie pulled the car door open and began nodding her head along to the song.

“Hey, Dad! Nice choice in music,” Julie greeted him, leaning over to peck his cheek.

“How was rehearsal?” Ray asked. He glanced in his side mirror to check if anyone was coming as he moved to pull the car back out into the street.

“It was okay. School killed me today, so I was kind of dragging in dance,” Julie began ranting about how tired she was from studying for a major English test the night before.

Ray was about to comment about how maybe she should take a break from the band and focus on school when he glanced in the rearview mirror and slammed on the breaks.

Julie screamed as her body was forced backward thanks to her seatbelt and stared at her father incredulously.

“Dad, what was that?” she shouted.

Ray ignored her. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the rearview mirror. Sitting in the backseat was a teenage boy with black hair and pale skin in a gray tank top and black jeans. The weirdest part about it was that the boy seemed delighted that Ray could actually see him.

Then, Ray blinked and the boy was gone.

He whirled in his seat to stare at the now-empty backseat.

“Dad?” Julie asked softly.

Ray couldn’t meet her eyes. He was ashamed. How could he have told her daughter to go see Dr. Turner all those months ago when here he was seeing things on more than one occasion?

The drive home was silent. He knew he should explain to Julie about what he saw, but Ray couldn’t force the words out of his mouth.

IV.

After seeing the teenage boy in his backseat, Ray locked himself in his bedroom as soon as they got home. He couldn’t face his kids until he accepted the fact that maybe he wasn’t as healed as he thought? Then again, why was he seeing teenage boys that he didn’t even know?

It wasn’t until late, much later than he normally stays up, that he opened his bedroom door.

Ray crossed the hall to pop his head into Carlos’ room to see his son fast asleep. Smiling, he silently slipped out of the room. He moved towards the end of the hall to check on Julie.

There was a light coming from under her door. Ray was fully prepared to scold the teenage girl for staying up so late when he opened the door. Instead, he stood there slack jawed and frozen.

His daughter was asleep after all, but she wasn’t alone.

Julie was nestled in the center of her bed. On the far side of the bed, there was a brown-haired boy curled around her, laying his cheek against her head. There was a blonde boy with his back to Ray wearing a _pink hoodie_. Then, the same boy he saw in his backseat earlier that evening was stretched out on top of Julie, laying his head on her stomach, and stretching his arms out to grab the other two teenagers’ arms. Julie, his precious Julie, leaned into the brown-haired boy, held the blonde’s hand and her other hand was resting against the black-haired boy’s back.

Ray stared at the sight of three teenage boys in his daughter’s bed. Under closer inspection, he realized that he did in fact recognize these boys. They were the other members of Julie and the Phantoms.

When he shook his head and blinked, none of the boys disappeared. They remained fast asleep, curled around his daughter.

A slightly hysterical laugh escaped his lips. Then, the laughter grew louder as Ray realized something.

“I’m not crazy! Ha! I knew I saw you three,” Ray cried, clapping his hands together.

The sudden noise startled the bed’s occupants. Julies shot up, wide awake, causing the brown-haired boy to slip off her shoulder and land face first on the pillows. The boy that was in Ray’s backseat earlier shot up and knocked heads with Julie. They both cried out in either shock or pain, or both. The blonde was so startled that the kid actually slipped off the bed and crashed onto the floor.

“Dad!” Julie cried, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m not crazy!” Ray bounded over to his daughter, stepping over the teenager on the floor, and gripped his daughter’s face. He was smiling so broadly that his cheeks started to ache.

“All this time I thought I was crazy and seeing random teenage boys for absolutely no reason, but here they are. Right in front of me! And you can see them, too!” Ray laughed manically before freezing again. “Wait, you can see them, right?”

Julie sighed. “Yes, I can see them. Dad, this is kind of a long story, but they’re my friends.” She gestured to each boy as she named them off. “This is Luke, Reggie, and Alex is the one on the floor.”

Each boy was staring at him like he might snap from a psychotic break, but, when Julie called their names, they each broke out into different reactions. The brown-haired—Luke—waved sheepishly at him with a choked out “Sir” slipping from his lips. The blonde—Alex—was trying to smile (it looked more like a grimace in Ray’s opinion) and nodded respectfully. The last boy, Reggie, was energetically bouncing from where he sat at the edge of the bed.

“Oh my God, you can see us. You can see me! Ray, hi! I know you technically just met me, but I have been hanging out with you for months and you have no idea how awesome it is that you can finally see me! Oh my God! Now we can have actual conversations! I won’t be talking to myself anymore! This is so cool!”

Ray didn’t know what he was talking about, but he smiled warmly at the bouncy kid.

“I’m not crazy,” Ray sighed, putting his hands on his hips and nodding triumphantly. “Alright, I expect the full story in the morning, Julie! I’m going to sleep!”

Not waiting for a response, Ray turned on his heel and strode out of the room. He was halfway down the hall when he stopped and turned back. He leaned against the doorway to meet Julie’s eyes and glare half-heartedly at the three teenage boys still in her bed.

“I might not know what’s going on but keep the door open!”

**Author's Note:**

> poor Ray! It was so much fun to write this from his POV. I might have to do more from Ray's POV, who knows? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> follow me on twitter! @/mxlfoywitty  
> follow me on tumblr @/sorryinadvancex


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